Category: Parenting

  The 300th best tennis player in the world is so much better than you are at tennis that it is hard to articulate the difference in ability. His second serve is consistently over 90 mph; his understanding of strategy is voluminous. Were you to play a match against the 300th

In a conversation with an attorney, I was recently mistaken for my dad who has practiced law in this town for just over half a century. An honest mistake in that my dad and I sound alike on the phone and neither of us had met the attorney in person

“You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching and you will be a disgrace, to yourself and all your family.” Ouch! Can the disappointed father speaking above be excused for his remark? To our modern day sensibility he certainly sounds like his love for his son is anything but

Of all the brilliant Dave Barry lines, “You can’t make this stuff up” remains high on my list–an extension of Mark Twain’s, “Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.” A Florida couple was recently arrested for giving marijuana and cocaine to their middle school children in

  How do my readers who are FOX News aficionados feel about devotees of MSNBC? And those of you who love the Daily Show with John Stewart, what are your thoughts about folks who never miss an installment of Rush Limbaugh? Do you view the purveyors of contrary opinions with

Alex’s defiance has been escalating since middle school and is no longer passive. In eighth grade he said, “I’ll take out the garbage as soon as I go up one more level.” At 17, he says, “I hate this house and everyone in it; on my next birthday, I never

One of my running buddies has a neighbor who gives her endlessly sincere advice about her workouts. He has insights into her weekly mileage, speed work, the long run, recovery, cross training, you name it. Her neighbor pontificates about the newest training schedule he has heard about. Jennifer is a

My wife says I could have an extramarital affair. But that I would have to go north of Orlando. Because there is no out of the way restaurant, no hotel, no aisle in Publix, no hospital waiting room where I don’t run into friends or old students or someone whom

Feeling fairly confident that the children were old enough to take a walk in Myakka River State Park by themselves, but not confident enough to actually let them leave the campsite unattended in the dark, I accompanied them down the trail into the woods. Before we had walked a hundred

Harry Zuckerman was a big part of my life growing up. He drove car pool to Sunday School and had been my dad’s best friend in law school. Harry married LaVona in late December 1954, two weeks after my mom and dad got hitched. “For tax purposes,” they said. The